The marketing challenge:
Making sales by making customers
By John Graham
Why do some companies embrace marketing with commitment and enthusiasm, while others ignore it almost scornfully? Even firms with marketing departments can act as if marketing is a “soft” function, one that can be stripped away to a bare budget at a moment’s notice if necessary.

One can sense, at times, that marketing is viewed as a crutch and something of an affront to the Tarzan types who eschew rifles on the hunt. Accepting assistance is seen as a sign of weakness or inadequacy. They think they must do it all themselves.

In effect, there’s a feeling that relying on marketing is suggesting that the big, strong crowd is not up to doing the job, particularly when it comes to sales.

Is marketing a sign of weakness? No company is more concerned about sales than Dell. Yet, Dell makes marketing a top priority. In fact, Dell is omnipresent. Its online ads are everywhere on the web, as are its inserts. Dell catalogs fill mailboxes and its newspaper and magazine ads are pervasive.

Then there’s Boca Burgers, a brand of veggie patties. Many who have taken a bite of a veggie burger have recoiled in horror. “It’s the taste of cardboard,” they say. “Never again.” So how does Boca meet the challenge of convincing the health-minded that its burger is different, that it looks and tastes like a “real” burger?

One solution is the supermarket taste test. Set up card tables in supermarkets and let customers try the product for themselves. Then hand them discount coupons and direct people to the Boca Burger display case.

A marketing executive took time out from his weekly grocery shopping to see how consumers responded to the Boca Burger promotion. It was working. “Hey, that tastes great,” said one man. “Is it really made from vegetables? It’s hard to believe. Where did you say I can find them?” There were non-believers, to be sure. Yet, the older man passing out Boca Burgers was doing his job of creating customers and making sales.

Or, take the case of Kia and Hyundai. How did these two South Korean car companies transform themselves from “hot potatoes” into “hot brands” almost literally overnight?

The answer is simple. These auto manufacturers invested in their brands. The change from no sales to record sales was driven by marketing.

How are they convincing doubting consumers that their products are vastly improved? Both companies came out with new, exciting, attractively priced, high-value vehicles protected by extraordinary 10-year, 100,000 mile warranties.

While other auto manufacturers can’t kick-start sales with ballooning incentives, Hyundai and Kia have consumers standing in line to buy their products.

This is an almost incomprehensible switch from a few years ago when the names Kia and Hyundai stood for junk. It’s marketing that’s driving their success today.

Even with a longstanding track record, HP has embraced marketing with renewed passion following its acquisition of Compaq. The company is out to protect and strengthen its preeminent place in printers against attacks from Dell, now that it has its own printer line. HP took out 10 full pages of full-color advertising in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers, a practice that IBM has also been using with its new mainframes.

These substantial investments don’t occur because energetic ad reps drop by to take marketing executives to lunch. All this is both deliberate and strategic. The goal is to sell products by protecting and building the brand.

“Half of the market value of the Fortune 250 is tied to intangible assets,” states a McKinsey & Company report. “For some of the world’s best known companies, the figure is even higher.”

With Coca-Cola and other companies, it’s the brand that enhances the company’s value.

How marketing changes the way companies think
In a highly competitive marketplace, marketing deals with the most basic of all business problems — how to stand out from the crowd. As marketer Al Ries says, “A brand program should be designed to differentiate your cow from all the other cows on the range. Even if all the cattle on the range look alike.”

The objective of marketing is for the customer to want your cow, car or greeting card. In a word, branding is about making customers — those who want your products or services.

Here are examples of how it works:
• Focus on what customers value. Many companies take enormous pride in “value-added,” as if what they’re offering should knock the customer’s socks off. Unfortunately, these are the people who are impressed by “value-added,” not the customer.

“We bring lots of value,” said the sales manager after taking a customer to lunch. The comment didn’t impress the customer. Not once had the sales executive asked the customer what was important to him.

Feedstuffs, the leading trade publication in the animal feed industry, recognized that its readers were looking for help in marketing, sales and business issues. By broadening its focus, the publication captured new readers and held on to existing subscribers. In the same way, Feedstuffs abandoned its hospitality suite at an annual industry trade show in favor of sponsoring a business seminar.

The only value that’s of any value is what’s important to the customer.

• Make a commitment to consistency. Companies seem to suffer from a form of “attention deficiency,” particularly when it comes to marketing initiatives.

Ford, for example, has brought back the logo it abandoned some years ago. What caused Ford to abandon its original logo? Did someone come up with another “great idea?” There are often valid reasons for changing corporate identity. At the same time, there may be equally valid reasons for leaving it alone.

Staying on course is often a serious problem in marketing. It’s easy to be seduced into trying something new and “different.” It’s difficult to stay on track.

A company relied on direct mail as its main technique for identifying new prospects. After using a particular database for some time, it folded in a second one. Almost immediately, a series of positive responses arrived. “That new list is really working,” noted the president. “They weren’t from the new list,” reported the project manager. “They came from the fourth mailing of the original list.”

The company’s original marketing strategy of consistency was correct. Each mailing focused on a single facet, a central concept. Taken together, the total responses from all four mailings were significant, the direct result of persistence.

• Focus on attraction building. Getting customers to take action is never easy and it’s getting more difficult by the day. Frustrated salespeople complain that it takes extraordinary patience to get a buying decision. Nothing happens fast. One reason, of course, is a lack of time. “Everything gets pushed back until it finally falls off the desk,” says one company president. “Then we deal with it.”

No one can be sure today when a customer is ready to sign the order. This is why it’s essential to include a response mechanism with every communication. It can be an e-mail link in an e-mail bulletin, a fax back form with a letter, or several contact possibilities in an ad. Making action easy is critical.

Always having an offer for something free gets the customer thinking and involved. It’s a way of starting a “conversation” with the prospect.

It has been pointed out that customers often follow a pattern. They see, hear or read something. If they are interested, they visit a web site. Depending on what they see, they may take the next step and make direct contact by e-mail, mail or telephone, whatever is most convenient.

In other words, the essential marketing task is one of attraction building.

The major issue, perhaps, is that companies often view marketing as an activity, rather than a function. Like a wellness program, for example, it’s nice to have around and makes everyone feel good, but it’s not critical to the operation of the business. In other words, the company can survive without it. Marketing is often viewed in a similar way.

But why are consumers willing to pay more for a Sony product or a Swiss Army knife? Why do consumers pass by an array of less expensive detergents and reach for Tide? The decision isn’t based on objective data that Tide cleans clothes better than the others. It’s because we believe it does a better job.

The priority for every company is making customers, those who reach for the Tide, stand in line for a Kia, or ask for Skye vodka. That’s the marketing function.

About the author: John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm. He is the author of The New Magnet Marketing and Break the Rules Selling, writes for a variety of publications, and speaks on business, marketing and sales topics for company and association meetings. He can be contacted at 617-328-0069 or . The company’s web site is www.grahamcomm.com.